Nakkeran Gopal arrested; politicos, media assns slam action

Editor of Nakkeeran magazine, R Gopal has been arrested by the city police for publishing a story defaming the Governor of Tamil Nadu Banwarilal Purohit.

Gopal has been charged under Section 124. A reporter with the magazine said, “He was arrested from the Chennai airport from where he was about to catch a flight to Pune.”

Gopal was arrested by the police for allegedly publishing a defamatory article against Tamil Nadu Governor Banwarilal Purohit, linking him with the assistant professor Nirmala Devi sex scandal.

Acting on a complaint from Raj Bhavan, a team of police officials arrested Gopal at the Chennai Airport when he was about to board a flight to Pune.

DMK president M K Stalin, who met Gopal at a hospital, said the arrest of Gopal showed that there was no freedom of the press in Tamil Nadu. “It shows that the BJP government at the Centre was not ready to tolerate any criticism,” he said.